After so many years, puppeteers and marionettes face some standard challenges. Scorching heat during some summer county fairs. An odd question from a curious kid. Parents texting during shows.

Still, even as Laurie Branham and Gil Olin dance, sing and frolic into their 22nd year of entertaining the masses, surprises happen.

Take that smaller version of the 1930s Dust Bowl -- in Spokane, of all places. Rolled in during a performance, blotted the sun and sent the audience scurrying.

"Everything shut down," Olin recalled. "People looked shocked."

After removing six inches of dust from their performance trailer the next day, it was on to the next show for the husband and wife team behind the Puppets & Players Little Theatre.

Based in Orange County, the two are in Vallejo this week, putting in three shows daily at the Solano County Fair. The mild temperatures are a welcomed relief after the 105-degree blistering heat at last week's Amador

County Fair.

"Sometimes the puppets looked like they were being rained on because of sweat drops" from the humans operating them, Branham said.

It was Wednesday after the 4 p.m. "Puff the Magic Dragon" show when Olin and Branham were cornered. Both appeared grateful for a chance to sit after the 32-minute program that includes Olin singing and dancing in front of the "trailer theater" and Branham operating puppets behind the scenes.

Even with cool weather, there's a ton of calories burned.

"It's very difficult to do," Olin said. "It's demanding physically."

Still, they're grateful for the work, though the demand for the state's county fairs is down because of budget cutbacks. The puppet shows at the AGtion Ranch are sponsored by Kaiser Permanente.

Fortunately, the Puppets & Players Little Theatre is big in the school system and other community events. Not that any place is always perfect.

Take the philosophy of each location.

"Fairs are very liberal," Olin said. "But at a Pumpkin Patch we do in October, our boss came up and said, 'We got a complaint. They didn't like the morality behind your belly dancer.'"

Olin shrugged.

"She shakes," he said. "She's a belly dancer."

The couple did learn that what may have been acceptable when they started the company evolved into something offensive. Like the pirate character calling the other pirate "idiot."

"When I wrote it, my first reaction was that they (students) hear four times worse on TV every night," Olin said. "But in schools nowadays, you can't use the word 'idiot.'"

"We put in 'foolish,'" Branham noted.

Attention spans have also changed in the last two decades, though Branham insists 32 minutes is already cutting their usual 45-minute program.

"I'm not going to submit to that," she said. "Kids need to have stories. They need to sit and listen."

Branham said she worked for an puppeteer years ago who told her "kids won't listen."

"I said, 'I'm going to prove you wrong,'" she replied. "I'm going to do fairy tales."

So the couple keep the show fast-paced, use "eye candy" like bubbles and a fog machine and keep the characters interesting.

"I find they have no problem with listening to the fairy tales," Branham said.

On this day, the recorded music from the adjacent Cultural Pavilion may have been distracting to some. No big deal for the marionettes. Not when they were placed next to pig races at another county fair.

"This is ideal," said Branham, who, admittedly, used to dream about the puppets.

"Not any more," she said. "Our kids do. They won't go into the garage" where puppets are kept. "They're too scared."

After hundreds of shows throughout the state -- plus a Japan tour in 1998 -- Branham and Olin still love the work.